The present invention relates to a technique for delayed registration data readout (or recall) in an electronic music apparatus and more particularly to an electronic music apparatus employing a novel delayed registration data readout (or recall) technique. The present invention also relates to a method for reading out registration data from a storage device in accordance with the delayed registration data readout technique, and a computer program for implementing the method or a non-transitory storage medium storing such a program.
A set of “registration data” (or registration data set) comprises settings of a plurality of parameters, such as a tone color and an accompaniment style, (hereinafter referred to as “parameter settings”) that are handled as a set of data. Heretofore, electronic music apparatus have been known, in which a plurality of such sets of registration data are prepared and stored in a memory in advance (e.g., prior to a music performance), and in which, during the performance, any desired set of registration data is read out and set at desired timing so as to simultaneously switch previous parameter settings to a tone color, accompaniment style, etc. included in the desired set of registration data.
A performance apparatus employing such an electronic music apparatus is known, in which, once readout (or recall) of a given set of registration data is instructed, only one or some of the parameter settings, not all of the parameter settings, included in the given set of registration data are read out (or recalled) and set into the apparatus (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-11-224086 that corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,175). In this conventionally-known performance apparatus, once readout of a set of registration data including a first parameter not related to an automatic accompaniment and a second parameter related to an automatic accompaniment is instructed, only the first parameter is read out and set into the apparatus.
However; with the aforementioned conventionally-known performance apparatus, even when only one or some parameters are to be read out, it is necessary to read out the entire of a set of registration data, requiring one separate readout operation per parameter use timing. Therefore, with the conventionally-known performance apparatus, different types of parameters to be used at different timing have to be prepared as different sets of registration data. Thus, the conventionally-known performance apparatus would necessitate increased user's time and labor, increased consumption of memory capacity due to such redundant registration data and increased number of user's operations for reading out the registration data.